A RWANDAN choirboy who grew up to become a senior army officer is the first person to be convicted for organising the country’s 1994 genocide.
Theoneste Bagosora, described as a “kingpin” in the massacres that killed 800,000 people, was sentenced to life in prison along with two other defendants.
Bagosora was sentenced at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha, Tanzania, where he has been held for more than 10 years.
The judge said Bagosora (67) co-ordinated and armed the notorious Interahamwe militia, and used his position as the former director of Rwanda’s ministry of defence to direct Hutu soldiers to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
He also was responsible for the deaths of former Rwandan prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian peacekeepers.
Former military commanders Anatole Nsegiyumva and Alloys Ntabakuze were also found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Bagosora’s lawyers said they were disappointed by the verdict and that their client was planning to appeal.
The 67-year-old maintained his innocence throughout the trial, insisting he was the victim of propaganda spread by Rwanda’s Tutsi-dominated government.
“I never killed anybody, neither did I give orders to kill. You are the ones who can rehabilitate me back to the society,” he said.
Prosecutors said Bagosora took control of the military when then president Juvénal Habyarimana’s aircraft was shot down in 1994 – the trigger for genocide.
Four years earlier he had already begun to “prepare the apocalypse”, according to the indictment. And a year later he described Tutsis as the “principal enemy” in a document circulated throughout the army.
Bagosora’s trial – along with three other defendants – lasted 409 days over six years and included 242 witnesses. Its length led some experts to question the usefulness of such a long-winded process. However, the successful conviction was welcomed by the Rwandan government which sees the Arusha tribunal as a vital pillar in the quest for justice and reconciliation.
Reed Brody, a specialist in international justice for Human Rights Watch, said the outcome sent a clear message to other world leaders accused of crimes against humanity and genocide, such as Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. “It says, ‘Watch out – justice can catch up with you.’ The authors of genocide can and will be punished by the international community.”
Hours after the presidential jet crashed, the Interahamwe set up roadblocks throughout Kigali.
The next day they began their slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The killing only ended when Tutsi rebels invaded from bases in Uganda and drove the extremist Hutu militias across the border in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.